How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Billy Ringo]

Just signed into the forum to say thanks to everyone contributing to this thread.  Found the thread a few weeks ago and have been soaking up every comment.  Absolutely fantastic and informative content.  Bluntly, my domain expertise in this arena is fairly insignificant to most in this thread so I'll be fairly quiet.  But absolutely appreciate the content.

 

[dan/california]

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-new-russian-offensive-is-intended-to-project-power-it-cannot-sustain/

 

Author has been reading the the thread.

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Sarjen said:

Interesting view on the domestic car market in Russia. 
 

 

This is one of the odd things about the people saying "sanctions will take time to have an impact" and "sanctions aren't yet having an impact".  There's so much evidence that sanctions are already digging deeply into the Russian economy.

Oddly, one of the more significant impacts is on employment isn't getting as much attention by experts as I think it should.  Think of all the hundreds of thousands of Russians prior to February that were employed making cars, manufacturing domestic items reliant upon Western components, selling western goods/services, working in travel/leisure sector, financial sector, etc.  These people are increasingly out of work because Russia's economy is market based, not centralized.  If there's no work, they lay people off.  And then what?  They are no longer contributing to the economy (GDP, pension plans, consumer spending, etc.), they are instead taking away from it in the form of increased need of government assistance.  It is also likely to increase undesirable things such as crime, which adds to the costs to the government and further strains domestic complacency.

The people that are claiming that Russia can muddle through sanctions seem to forget to adjust for the factors associated with major unemployment.

Russia is headed back to a mid 1990s situation.  Something Putin promised Russians they'd never see again under his leadership.  We're already seeing signs of this and the full effect of sanctions hasn't even hit yet.

Steve

[Calamine Waffles]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is one of the odd things about the people saying "sanctions will take time to have an impact" and "sanctions aren't yet having an impact".  There's so much evidence that sanctions are already digging deeply into the Russian economy.

Oddly, one of the more significant impacts is on employment.  Think of all the hundreds of thousands of Russians prior to February that were employed making cars, manufacturing domestic items reliant upon Western components, selling western goods/services, working in travel/leisure sector, financial sector, etc.  These people are increasingly out of work because Russia's economy is market based, not centralized.  If there's no work, they lay people off.  And then what?  They are no longer contributing to the economy (GDP, pension plans, consumer spending, etc.), they are instead taking away from it in the form of increased need of government assistance.  It is also likely to increase undesirable things such as crime, which adds to the costs to the government and further strains domestic complacency.

The people that are claiming that Russia can muddle through sanctions seem to forget to adjust for the factors associated with major unemployment.

Russia is headed back to a mid 1990s situation.  Something Putin promised Russians they'd never see again under his leadership.  We're already seeing signs of this and the full effect of sanctions hasn't even hit yet.

Steve

Dobrev says they are already considering classifying information about Russian forex reserves, always a good sign.
 

 

[JonS]

Moving 20,000,000,000 kgs of stuff is hard, yo

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/07/how-do-you-get-20m-tonnes-of-grain-out-of-ukraine?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, dan/california said:

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-new-russian-offensive-is-intended-to-project-power-it-cannot-sustain/

 

Author has been reading the the thread.

You know, it is really strange for me to read something like this and realize how well we're documenting the war in this thread.  There's nothing in this OpEd that hasn't been discussed here in detail and the same conclusions reached by the group as a whole.  In particular, the author comes to the same conclusions seen here in the past couple of weeks:

Quote

For all these reasons and more the current Russian offensive will almost certainly stall at a certain point, probably before it has secured the rest of Donetsk Oblast—Putin’s stated objective in this phase of the war. When it does the Russian military will likely have expended the last of its available effective offensive maneuver capability for now. There is no vast mobilization of Russian troops preparing to enter the war, no untapped reserves of combat-ready troops to send, no more areas of the front from which to draw fresh troops for another drive. Even if Putin ordered general mobilization tomorrow, fresh troops would not start streaming into Ukraine for many months—such are the realities of mobilizing and training soldiers even to be cannon fodder.

The Russian military certainly cannot sustain the current offensive long enough and far enough to destroy the Ukrainian military or seize other major cities. We must not allow the depressing losses of Severodonetsk and likely more territory in the east to obscure that reality.

Severodonetsk is not decisive terrain. Seizing it does not give the Russians new roads along which to conduct new offensives on favorable terms. Losing it does not unhinge Ukraine’s ability to defend critical positions. Ukraine can lose Severodonetsk and still win this war. It can lose Luhansk and even Donetsk Oblast, and still win this war as long as it does not lose too much of its effective combat power in doing so.

The three major points in these paragraphs are:

1. The current offensive is likely going to end without achieving Putin's much slimmed down objectives
2. Russia has likely expended it's offensive capacity above isolated tactical actions
3. Ukraine can lose territory as long as it retains the ability to continue killing Russians

Sound familiar?

Pats on backs all around for the discussion here!

Steve

[Huba]

16 minutes ago, JonS said:

Moving 20,000,000,000 kgs of stuff is hard, yo

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/07/how-do-you-get-20m-tonnes-of-grain-out-of-ukraine?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

One interesting thing in this article is that according to quoted sources, Ukraine manages to get 1.2M tons out of the country per month instead of previously stated 600K tons. While not nearly enough, it is a considerable difference.

[Battlefront.com]

51 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Just signed into the forum to say thanks to everyone contributing to this thread.  Found the thread a few weeks ago and have been soaking up every comment.  Absolutely fantastic and informative content.  Bluntly, my domain expertise in this arena is fairly insignificant to most in this thread so I'll be fairly quiet.  But absolutely appreciate the content.

 

Welcome!  I appreciate you popping in to say hello at the very least.  It means a lot to see someone delurk.  It says we must be doing something right

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I would like to draw people's attention to these excellent posts made on the previous page (i.e. a few hours ago!):

These two excellent posts illustrate one of the problems with discussing this war that has plagued even this thread.  We are all naturally drawn to focus on Russia's failings because they are so dramatic and massive in scale.  For those who thought Russia was much stronger than it was, surprise factors in to the attention on the Russian side of things.

All true.  But only half of the Big Picture of this war.  What about Ukraine's contribution to Russia's defeat?

The other half of the equation is that even with all of Russia's systemic and situational follies, if Ukraine hadn't been so well prepared to fight this fight it could have been a Russian victory.  Case in point... Russia's war against Georgia in 2008.  Russia's military was in horrible shape and they were fighting against a motivated people fighting on their home turf.  Yet Georgia decidedly lost the war because it wasn't properly prepared to fight it.  Similarly, had Russia decided to enlarge the 2014/2015 war in Ukraine things might have turned out rather badly for Ukraine.  Which is exactly why Ukraine was so ready to fight in 2022.

Ukraine determined that Russia was not going to be satiated with the chunks of Ukraine it swallowed up in 2014.  Unless something dramatically changed within the Kremlin, sooner rather than later a large scale out-in-the-open attack was going to happen.  Ukraine made a conscious decision to resist when the time came.  As imperfect as their planning and execution might have been, they had vastly more right than wrong.  This was not accidental, it took considerable effort, determination, and intelligence to pull this off.

The above two posts encapsulate the two sides of the equation quite nicely.

Steve

[Hapless]

And from the strategic to the tactical- if anyone wanted to see how drones can supplement basic soldiering skills:



Apparently Russian SF vs a Ukrainian patrol. Short sharp ambush, followed by snatching a wounded prisoner. Footage is here- NSFW.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/v6yjpr/pov_of_russian_sso_ambush_against_ukrainian/

Obviously it's interesting to see a small scale tactical action from this perspective, but I think it's important to see that the impact of the drone here isn't revolutionary. It certainly might make certain elements easier (we don't know how long they've been waiting there- it could be a snap ambush thrown on at a moment's notice because they spotted the incoming patrol via the drone) but the drone isn't doing the basics for them, it's complementing existing skills.

This is sort of drones writ large: they don't exactly bring any new capabilities to the table as a whole (drones aren't doing any missions that didn't get done in WW1 by biplanes (except any EW stuff)), but they do extend existing capabilities- more people at the table get the ability to carry out and benefit from those missions.

For example, aerial reconaissance is a thing- but there's a world of difference between trying to get an aircraft to fly over, take some photos and then somehow get them to a rifle platoon in a timely manner vs the platoon drone operator chucking a Raven in the air and getting a live feed a couple of seconds later. How to operate in an environment where everyone has airpower at their fingertips is the hard part.

[panzermartin]

12 hours ago, Huba said:

Let me just leave it here:

 

I guess if Ukrainians were to chose they would probably prefer their all familiar BMPs at this moment as time is of the essence. But we can't just leave the islands without at least a symbolic mechanized counterattacking force, especially this summer where we fear something bad is about to happen. 

That being said, Marders are not state of the art either, it's a 70s design, carry less troops and their 20mm ammunition is in shortage. Their state is unknown, apart from around 30 in working condition , Rheinmetall will need some time to service the rest back to 100% before handing them to Gr Army. 

[poesel]

42 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

But we can't just leave the islands without at least a symbolic mechanized counterattacking force

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Hellenic_Army

Greece is very well equipped with vehicles.

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I am not like Steve to be honest.  I had no idea how this war was going to go before it started.  It wasn't until about 72 hours in that it became very apparent that something was happening that no one in the business predicted.  That is when the sickness symptoms of the Russian system began to appear. 

I've given a lot of thought to how it was that I was so convinced of Russian defeat before the war even begin.  It's interesting to me, obviously, but I think illustrative of why so many experts got it wrong.

First, I never bought that Russia had fundamentally reformed its military at any level.  It was using the same inferior stuff it always had, just with some more bling stuck to it.  Truly transformative equipment was either introduced in small quantities or languishing in trials stages.  Those who thought Russia had modernized were flat out wrong.

Second, there was no indication that the Russians had reconciled the needs of a modern and nimble force with their traditional inability to deliver upon them.  In particular dynamic leadership at junior levels backed up by seniors who had risen through the same experiences.  For sure there was no professional NCO corps and that is a fundamental prerequisite for a truly capable tactical centric force (which in turn is what you need for nimble!).

Third, I never saw Russia's experiences in Syria as either helping Russia transform its military or proving it was already transformed.  What I saw was similar to 2014 Crimea where a hand picked bunch of units were able to execute a hand picked mission that had low chance of failure.

Fourth, the true costs of keeping Russia's relatively large military up and running were in excess of its financial capacity.  Russia would surely try to hide its deficiencies, therefore I just presumed they were there and not in view.  Others apparently thought since they couldn't be seen they didn't exist.  I think the first couple of weeks proved that wrong pretty spectacularly!

Fifth, if Russia has a choice between doing something that is correct and something that has the appearance of being correct, they will chose the latter almost every time.  Why?  Because what is in fact correct is always more expensive than something that is superficially correct.  Whatever Russia claimed to be true I always downgraded it.  Always.

Sixth, part of the reason for my low opinion of Russia doing things the correct way is corruption.  This is one area where I estimated a lot more impact than many experts, but even I underestimated how bad it was.  However, since my estimation was enough to knock Russia's capabilities down a few pegs I at least knew corruption was going to bite them in the butt.

Seventh, Russia's history of brutality, cruelty, and utter lack of concern for the care of their soldiers didn't seem to me substantially better than in the past.  That does not produce a good quality soldier, it certainly doesn't produce a motivated one.

Eighth, the set piece exercises always made me chuckle.  They never looked valuable to me from a military standpoint.  Compared to NTSC in the US, Russian exercises looked like a parade with more dirt.  All they proved was that the Russians were able to conduct a large PR event.

Ninth, all of these things combined swirl around to create an overall force that is highly susceptible to disruption.  Fragile showpiece militaries tend to perform very badly in real combat because they don't have the means or mentality to deal with things that go "off script".  We saw this so very clearly from the very start of this war.

And tenth, on top of all of these systemic problems is a political leadership that is corrupt from top to bottom.  Morally, intellectually, socially, and of course literally.  Or put another way, incompetent.  This not only gave me lower faith in the military it built, but low opinions about its ability to fight a war successfully.

I'll stop there because 10 is good enough

On top of this, I saw the other side of the equation.  And that was a Ukrainian political and military partnership that was doing all the right things to tailor itself to countering a Russian invasion.  It wasn't wasting money on some bling navy or fanciful weapons it could never afford to produce.  It didn't have it's soldiers' ability to wage war based on how well they marched in parade.  It had no illusions about its chances of outright defeating a Russian attack with conventional tactics and forces.  It took Russian "hybrid war" elements seriously and developed some counters for them, including paying attention to loyalties of those put into positions of authority.  Above all else, I saw a population that had made a firm decision that if it came to war they would fight and fight hard.

It seems that many of the experts who had been paying attention to Russia didn't look critically enough at their likely capabilities, and they didn't think of the Ukrainian defense with anything other than a dismissive "they'll get crushed" attitude.  We know how that combo turned out.

Steve

[sburke]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Third, I never saw Russia's experiences in Syria as either helping Russia transform its military or proving it was already transformed.  What I saw was similar to 2014 Crimea where a hand picked bunch of units were able to execute a hand picked mission that had low chance of failure.

 

Steve

Interesting statement by a guy who served with Wagner group in Syria for 3 years on actual Russian performance.

An ex-member of one of the world's most dangerous mercenary groups has gone public | WFUV

"In Syria, one goal was to quickly achieve victory," he says. "But the second goal that was just as important, was to hide the number of losses that the Russian military had in that campaign. Because we wanted to create an image of a strong Russian military that achieved victory at a small cost."

But it was all deception, he says. The cost was huge, but no one will ever know the real numbers. In fact, experts say, often it's Wagner Group soldiers on the front lines — so their losses are higher than the regular army's, and private armies go uncounted.

[panzermartin]

17 minutes ago, poesel said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Hellenic_Army

Greece is very well equipped with vehicles.

We have a good variety of tracked and wheeled assets but unfortunately we rely on ancient M113s, BMP1s and undereqquiped Leonidas for the APC role. Marders could fit the bill there. I wonder if the M1117 (we have over 1000s of them) could support that role too apart from patrolling, they are well armored and nimble, perfect for island terrain ( but lack firepower I think.) 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Hapless said:

And from the strategic to the tactical- if anyone wanted to see how drones can supplement basic soldiering skills:



Apparently Russian SF vs a Ukrainian patrol. Short sharp ambush, followed by snatching a wounded prisoner. Footage is here- NSFW.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/v6yjpr/pov_of_russian_sso_ambush_against_ukrainian/

Obviously it's interesting to see a small scale tactical action from this perspective, but I think it's important to see that the impact of the drone here isn't revolutionary. It certainly might make certain elements easier (we don't know how long they've been waiting there- it could be a snap ambush thrown on at a moment's notice because they spotted the incoming patrol via the drone) but the drone isn't doing the basics for them, it's complementing existing skills.

This is sort of drones writ large: they don't exactly bring any new capabilities to the table as a whole (drones aren't doing any missions that didn't get done in WW1 by biplanes (except any EW stuff)), but they do extend existing capabilities- more people at the table get the ability to carry out and benefit from those missions.

For example, aerial reconaissance is a thing- but there's a world of difference between trying to get an aircraft to fly over, take some photos and then somehow get them to a rifle platoon in a timely manner vs the platoon drone operator chucking a Raven in the air and getting a live feed a couple of seconds later. How to operate in an environment where everyone has airpower at their fingertips is the hard part.

Agreed.  Many of the tactics drones are used for simply enhance capabilities that have theoretically existed for 100 years.  However, the transformative aspect is that this capability is widespread, flexible, and can be used for incredibly small actions without the sorts of potential downsides of using traditional aerial assets.  Just picture a high intensity war with a Kiowa loitering around to give a squad the drop on a 3 man patrol.  Not practical, not even smart. 

Here's extended drone video.  Looks like for sure 1x KIA and 2x KIA.  Not sure if the guy towards the bottom of the screen was killed outright or wounded.  Certainly one of the ambushers spent some time there.

Steve

[Billy Ringo]

Sometimes you just have to put pencil to paper, black and white, raw numbers, two columns: 

$7 trillion  vs. $700 billion.  

That's the difference between very rough estimates of US vs. Russian military spending over the past 10 years.   And that doesn't take into consideration graft, inefficiencies nor the budgets of other NATO/Western nations.

Maintenance and upkeep.  Training.  Surveillance. Communications. Breadth and depth of weapons.  Research and Development, etc.

10X.

I realize I'm stating the most basic and obvious comparison of this entire battle.  But sometimes it gets lost in the minutiae of the discussions. 

10X.  As long as the US and a few other countries continue to support the Ukrainians this war cannot end well for the Russians.  Like a AA or AAA baseball team--they may win one game vs. a MLB team (or for our Euro friends--a National League vs. a Premier League), but they aren't winning the season or a series of multiple games.  

It's not gonna happen.

Peace.

 

 

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

Sometimes you just have to put pencil to paper, black and white, raw numbers, two columns: 

$7 trillion  vs. $700 billion.  

That's the difference between very rough estimates of US vs. Russian military spending over the past 10 years.   And that doesn't take into consideration graft, inefficiencies nor the budgets of other NATO/Western nations.

Maintenance and upkeep.  Training.  Surveillance. Communications. Breadth and depth of weapons.  Research and Development, etc.

10X.

I realize I'm stating the most basic and obvious comparison of this entire battle.  But sometimes it gets lost in the minutiae of the discussions. 

10X.  As long as the US and a few other countries continue to support the Ukrainians this war cannot end well for the Russians.  Like a AA or AAA baseball team--they may win one game vs. a MLB team (or for our Euro friends--a National League vs. a Premier League), but they aren't winning the season or a series of multiple games.  

It's not gonna happen.

Peace.

 

 

good analogy.  My cincinnati reds are basically an excellent AAA team.  And we even win sometimes. 

So once we take into account RU corruption and the rest of NATO, it must be more like a  20X advantage. 

For those who missed this when someone posted it earlier, it is worth the time.  Especially in how as one goes down the chain of command there's greater and greater inequality in the monetary amount of corruption vs the damage to readiness and capability.  For example, at the bottom of the chain of command, selling some fuel for a few thousand dollars can stop an entire BTG well short of its objective.  Or selling $100 worth of copper wire ruins a $2M tank.

 

[Vanir Ausf B]

Article on the challenges of operating a hodge-podge of foreign equipment.

But an oversight nearly delayed all maintenance on the guns at the hard-to-reach front lines, Ukrainian officers said. The entire M777 machine is put together on the imperial system used in the U.S., meaning that using a Ukrainian metric wrench on it would be difficult, and would risk damaging the equipment.

Only after sending the guns did the U.S. arrange for a rushed shipment of toolboxes of imperial-gauge wrenches, said Maj. Vadim Baranik, the deputy commander of a maintenance unit.

But tools can be misplaced, lost or destroyed, potentially leaving guns inoperable unless someone scrounges up a U.S.-supplied wrench.

https://news.yahoo.com/potent-weapons-reach-ukraine-faster-114318516.html

[Battlefront.com]

Recent Ukraine TV video in the Kharkiv counter attack area with some TD units.  Closed Caption is in English.

It's a good look at the TD in the area and their attitudes.  At one point they describe a hit and run activity and said that's all they felt they could do, so that's all they tried to do.  The Russians apparently didn't expect an attack.  One of the soldiers was asked if they has burned up all the Russian stuff around them and he said nope, they can't take credit for it as a different "department" did that work (artillery).

Towards the end there's some time spent with a completely devastated column of Russian vehicles, many of them OMAN.  Some bits and pieces of bodies remain, but largely cleaned up.  No ability to know when that particular fighting happened, but at least some of the vehicles are really recent.  In fact, there was the first instance I've seen of a Belarus vehicle in Russian service.

 

[Machor]

Looks like tomorrow is the big day.

Turkey says working to agree Ukraine grain export plan

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/turkey-says-working-agree-ukraine-grain-export-plan-2022-06-07/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter

"Turkey is coordinating closely with Russia and Ukraine to agree a plan that would re-start grain exports from Ukrainian ports even as conflict rages elsewhere in the country, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.

The United Nations-driven plan would open a safe shipping corridor to address a global food crisis brought on by Russia's invasion in February which halted Ukraine's Black Sea grain exports.

Akar said the four sides are working out how mines floating off the port of Odesa and elsewhere along Ukraine's coast will be cleared and who will do it, and who would safeguard the corridor.

"We are making efforts to conclude this as soon as possible," he told reporters in embargoed remarks after a cabinet meeting late on Monday.

"A lot of progress has been made on this issue" and technical planning continues, he said.

Turkey neighbours Ukraine and Russia at sea and has said it is ready to take on a role within an "observation mechanism" if a deal is reached.

That could involve Turkish naval escorts for tankers leaving Ukraine and heading toward Turkey's straits onward to world markets.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu hosts his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for talks on the plan on Wednesday."

[Machor]

Ukrainian Navy Mi-14PS is attacked by a Russian Su-35 (?) with its cannon; the fighter supposedly finished the chopper off in the second run with an R-73 missile:

 

[OldSarge]

49 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Article on the challenges of operating a hodge-podge of foreign equipment.

But an oversight nearly delayed all maintenance on the guns at the hard-to-reach front lines, Ukrainian officers said. The entire M777 machine is put together on the imperial system used in the U.S., meaning that using a Ukrainian metric wrench on it would be difficult, and would risk damaging the equipment.

Only after sending the guns did the U.S. arrange for a rushed shipment of toolboxes of imperial-gauge wrenches, said Maj. Vadim Baranik, the deputy commander of a maintenance unit.

But tools can be misplaced, lost or destroyed, potentially leaving guns inoperable unless someone scrounges up a U.S.-supplied wrench.

https://news.yahoo.com/potent-weapons-reach-ukraine-faster-114318516.html

Interesting! I was wondering if that was going to end up being an issue. I have a re-branded Holden Monaro, fine car, but an international mix of parts. The drive-train uses good old SAE and everything else is metric. Always have to keep a proper mix of the tools in the go bag.

For want of a nail (and the right tools)...

Edited June 7, 2022 by OldSarge

[Huba]

Out of curiosity I got back to the beginning of this magnificent thread to see what was being said about this war when it was just unfolding. Out of many great (one could say almost prophetic) predictions then made , this one caught my eye. Arguably we have already crossed that line around week ago when Ukrainians promised not to attack Russia's proper with the new MLRS they are about to receive.

On 2/26/2022 at 6:34 PM, The_Capt said:

We will no this is really over when the NATO has to get assurances that Ukraine will not counter-attack into Russia.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Huba

[Calamine Waffles]

39 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

In fact, there was the first instance I've seen of a Belarus vehicle in Russian service.

The GM-352 chassis used by some earlier Tunguskas is made in Minsk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_chassis